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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29681301">what it leaves behind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonicneonfishy/pseuds/demonicneonfishy'>demonicneonfishy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>february angst-fest (febuwhump 2021) [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dreams, F/F, Flashbacks, Memory Loss, POV Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Pre-Canon, and absolutely nothing else!, back on my andy centric angst bullshit, etc - Freeform, for everyone including me, it's missing lykon hours</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:07:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29681301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonicneonfishy/pseuds/demonicneonfishy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, she wakes up, and it takes her a moment to remember Lykon’s laughter. His smile. Some days, even his name.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy | Andromache of Scythia &amp; Lykon &amp; Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>february angst-fest (febuwhump 2021) [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>what it leaves behind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>day 24 of febuwhump 2021<br/>prompt: memory loss<br/>idea for this one came from @hottopicmonk on tumblr!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Andy forgets things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a natural effect of living for almost seven thousand years. Booker likes to joke that she’s forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn, but the truth is that killing is what she </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>forget. Muscle memory and instinct take a long time to fade, and she’s had millennia to build them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What fades is the other things. Moments and places and </span>
  <em>
    <span>people</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People she doesn’t want to forget.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, she wakes up, and it takes her a moment to remember Lykon’s laughter. His smile. Some days, even his name. Those are the most terrifying days, the ones that leave her momentarily paralysed with fear because she knows his name, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>him, why can’t she remember him-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t want to lose him, not again. The memories she has left are small, just a quick smile and the shaft of a spear and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Andromache</span>
  </em>
  <span> said in a teasing but affectionate tone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has Joe’s drawings to stop her forgetting Quýnh - but she’d only lost her five hundred years ago and they don’t know for sure if she’s gone, that’s not the same as Lykon, who’s gone forever, she watched him die - but he’d never known Lykon. Joe had tried to help her, but there’s only so much he can do from her descriptions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d thanked him and spent the rest of the day alone, trying her hardest to remember.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And that’s why the tiger has stripes,” Lykon finishes. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“That is easily your worst yet,” Quýnh informs him, and Lykon elbows her. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Your criticism is, as always, unhelpful,” Lykon says. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I’m always helpful,” Quýnh responds, which escalates into bickering as if they weren’t both at least centuries old.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Andromache can’t help smiling as she watches, her heart full. She’d been alone for so long, but now… now she has them, and they have her, and they are not alone.</span>
  </em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>Another evening, another fire. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Wait, no, tell us the one about the talking hare,” Quýnh says.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“As you wish,” Lykon answers. “Long ago…”</span>
  </em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Andy blinks awake in the darkness just before dawn. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What was the story?</span>
  </em>
  <span> She knows it - it had been Quýnh’s favorite, and she’d heard it too many times to count.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quýnh?” she asks sleepily. “Do you remember the story Lykon used to tell? The one with the talking hare?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When there’s no response, she rolls over to find the other side of the bed cold and empty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Quýnh is lost to the sea, and Lykon is gone forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Andromache is the one left behind.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>oops<br/>-<br/>i'm demonicneonfishy on tumblr too if you wanna come say hi!! (or yell at me for the angst)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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